---
title: "Judge actions"
description: "Send an email, post to Slack, save a trace to a dataset, or run more judges when a judge returns a given result."
sidebar:
  label: "Judge actions"
seo:
  title: "Judge actions | Judgment Docs"
  description: "Send an email, post to Slack, save a trace to a dataset, or run more judges when a judge returns a given result."
---

An action runs after a judge evaluates a trace in production, based on the result the judge returned. The [Alerting cookbook](/documentation/judges/cookbook-alerting) walks through a full example.

Actions react to one evaluation at a time. For trends or totals over a week, use a [Scheduled Task](/documentation/agents/scheduled-tasks) instead.

## Action groups

A judge's actions live in action groups. Each group has its own result condition, environments, frequency and cooldown, and runs its actions when an evaluation matches. A judge can have several groups: for example, one that posts every `Attempted` result in `production` to Slack, and another that adds both results from `staging` to a dataset.

## Add an action group

1. Open the judge, then the **Details** tab, and expand **Actions**.
2. Optionally give the group a **Name**.
3. Select **Add action** and pick **Send email**, **Notify on Slack**, **Add to dataset** or **Run judge**. Fill in its destination. A group can hold several actions.
4. Under **When the result is**, select the outputs that run the group's actions, or **Select all**.
5. Under **In environments**, pick the environments whose evaluations run the actions. Leave it on all environments to act everywhere.
6. Optionally open **Advanced** to set frequency and cooldown.
7. Save and publish the version.

{/* SCREENSHOT: Actions section on the judge Details tab with one action group and a Slack action, dark mode */}

For example, a jailbreak judge on the [lunch-order agent](/documentation/start/example-agent) with the outputs `Attempted` and `Not attempted` gets a group whose **When the result is** is `Attempted`, with a **Notify on Slack** action.

Once the judge has one group, **Add action group** adds another. To remove a group, open its menu and select **Delete action group**. Each group and each action has its own switch, so you can turn one off without deleting it.

Action groups are saved with the judge version. Actions run only after an automatic online evaluation of the production version, so turn on online monitoring under **Run settings**. Test runs and judges you [run on selected traces](/documentation/judges/run-on-live-traffic#run-a-judge-on-traces-you-already-have) never send actions. An evaluation that ends in an error doesn't match any condition.

Judges created before GA may be Binary or Score. For a Binary judge, **When the result is** offers **Any output**, **Detected** and **Not detected**. For a Score judge it offers **Any output** and a **Score comparison** with a threshold.

You can also ask the [Judgment Agent](/documentation/agents/judgment-agent) to add an action, or use the MCP tools: `list_judge_action_groups` and `set_judge_action_groups`, or the action configuration on `create_judge` and `update_judge`. See [MCP tools](/documentation/reference/mcp-tools).

## Actions

| Action | What you configure |
|---|---|
| **Send email** | One **Email address** |
| **Notify on Slack** | The organization's default channels or one channel, plus an optional message |
| **Add to dataset** | A dataset with one trace field (or one session field for a session judge) |
| **Run judge** | Other judges to run on the same trace |

**Notify on Slack** needs a Slack connection for your organization. See [Connections](/documentation/administration/connections).

By default, the action posts to the organization's default Slack channels (**Use organization default channels**). To select one channel instead, clear that checkbox. If the organization has no default channels, you have to select one before you can save.

The message includes:

- The judge's result and reasoning
- The trace's input and output preview
- A button to open the trace
- Your **Message (optional)** text

Use **Run judge** to run an expensive judge only on traces a cheaper judge flagged first. The judges it starts run their production version on the same trace, and they do run their own actions.

Their own run settings don't apply: online monitoring, environments, run conditions, and sampling rate. A judge that already ran earlier in the same chain is skipped, so two judges that run each other can't loop.

## Frequency and cooldown

Open **Advanced** in a group. The line under it summarizes the current limits.

- **Run actions only if conditions matched at least**: the actions run only once that many matching evaluations happen inside the window. The default is 1 time in the last 1 minute, so every match runs them.
- **Once actions are triggered, wait**: after the actions run, wait this long before running them again. The default is 0.

Both take a unit: seconds, minutes, hours or days. The limits apply to every enabled action in the group, so a cooldown set to quiet Slack also holds back **Add to dataset** in the same group. Put actions that need different limits in separate groups.

## Alert on cost, duration or errors

Create a judge with **Deterministic conditions** as its evaluation method and add an action group to it. The conditions are **Duration (seconds)**, **LLM cost (USD)**, **Error**, and span groups that check a span's **Span Name** or **Span Attribute** on the **Root span** or **Any single span**. Combine them with AND, OR and parentheses. The judge returns **Matched** or **Not matched**, so set **When the result is** to **Matched**.

## If an action didn't run

To confirm an action ran, check its destination: the inbox, the Slack channel, the dataset, or the other judge's **Labels** tab. If nothing arrived, check that:

- The group and the action are both switched on.
- Online monitoring is on, and its environments, run conditions and sampling rate cover the trace.
- The version with the action is the production version.
- The result and environment match the group's **When the result is** and **In environments**.
- The group's frequency threshold was reached and it isn't in its cooldown.

## Automations

The **Automations** tab under **Monitoring** holds automations created before actions moved onto judges. Existing automations keep running for now. Configure new actions on a judge instead. Judgment will migrate supported automations into judge action groups before automations are turned off.